Less

Like I said last week, please publish less.

"Publishers want to sell at least 25,000 copies, which for fiction is tough," said Sarah Gold, senior reviews editor of Publishers Weekly. "Founding-father biographies and disaster books are both trends that have done very well. Publishers are all about jumping on the bandwagon."

For many readers, shopping for books has become less whimsical and more like a trip to pick up the dry cleaning.

"Superstores have actually made buyers less adventurous," Rusoff said. "People don't browse in the same way they used to. When Oprah began her book club, all of us in publishing were thrilled. The books she selected sold a million copies or more, but buyers would walk in, buy that title only, and walk out, never even stopping to look at another title."

Charles sees too much weight being given to bestseller lists because consumers are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of books on the shelves.

"The variety of choice makes everyone's eyes glaze over," he said. "So you grab onto a list instead of going on your own search."

Comments

[James Long]

This is key to selling though, isn't it. The volume of books available will always be growing, so sellers have to find ways of leading customers into a selection behaviour. Presenting a list is a one-sided behaviour - sellers need to find collaborative techniques, like setting a theme and mixing their recommendations with customers' own. Or something like that.

[Pete]

That does it--my next NaNoWriMo novel will be about the Founding Fathers getting caught in a typhoon, with a little addiction-recovery thrown in for good measure. I smells me a bestseller!